Take Control of Apple Home Automation

Manage your smart home with Apple’s HomeKit platform

“Smart home” devices are everywhere these days—you can buy internet-connected light bulbs, thermostats, door locks, sensors, and dozens of other products. But these devices aren’t very smart on their own. Apple’s HomeKit platform offers a way to integrate, monitor, control, and automate smart home devices from a wide variety of manufacturers. Using the built-in Home app on an iOS device (perhaps along with third-party apps), you can connect to your various smart devices, see what they’re up to, control them, and even get them to operate on a schedule or respond to changing conditions in your home automatically.

Even with HomeKit, however, home automation can be a daunting prospect. That’s why TidBITS Managing Editor Josh Centers wrote Take Control of Apple Home Automation. The book walks you carefully through every step of the process, showing you how you can start with a basic system that costs less than $50 and work your way up to as much complexity as you want or need. And you don’t have to be a computer geek to simplify and improve your life with HomeKit-compatible products. Even if you don’t know a wire nut from a macadamia or which end of a screwdriver to stick in a socket (spoiler: neither!), Josh’s thorough advice will enable you to work wonders in your home.

In this book, you’ll learn:

The most common home automation myths (and why you shouldn’t worry about them)

How to choose HomeKit-compatible devices that meet your needs, and which products you might want to avoid

Exactly what HomeKit is, what it does, how it works, and what its limitations are

Why you need a hub (in the form of an Apple TV, HomePod, or iPad) and how to set it up

Important safety rules for working with electrical products, especially those that require wiring

How to install advanced accessories such as a smart switch, thermostat, or door/window sensor—including illustrated, step-by-step instructions

What Apple’s Home app for iOS does—and how to configure homes, zones, rooms, accessories, services, and scenes

Tips for controlling your smart home using an iOS device, Apple Watch, or Siri

Ways to automate your smart home using schedules, sensors, geofencing, and other tools (without making your house seem haunted)

The best ways to troubleshoot home automation problems

This book was sponsored by our friends at Elgato (makers of the Eve line of HomeKit devices), so many of the examples feature Elgato products, although nearly all the advice in the book is applicable to HomeKit products from any manufacturer. (You’ll also read about working with Philips Hue bulbs, ecobee thermostats, and numerous other devices.)

If you’re an Apple user who’s interested in joining the smart home revolution—or adding even more smarts to your existing setup—this book is the ideal guide.

Note: Although this book is almost entirely applicable to iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 Mojave, we plan to release a free update to the book before the end of 2018 to cover certain small changes in those operating systems.

Update Plans

September 17, 2018—Although this book is almost entirely applicable to iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 Mojave, we hope to release a free update to the book before the end of 2018 to cover certain small changes in those operating systems.

Josh Centers is the managing editor of TidBITS and a freelance writer who has written for Macworld, the Magazine, Boing Boing, and the Sweethome. He has been featured on Daring Fireball, the Loop, TUAW, and Scientific American, and is a frequent guest on MacVoices and the Tech Night Owl. He lives in Tennessee with his wife, Hannah, and their son, Harris.